Project Management Fundamentals

Master the essentials of project management with an experienced Project Management Professional as your guide. This course provides the concepts you need to plan, implement, control and close any type of project.

If you're organized, perceptive, detail-oriented, and an excellent communicator, you just might have what it takes to succeed in the fast-growing field of project management.

In this course, an experienced Project Management Professional will help you master the essentials of project management. You will become an indispensable member of your project team by discovering and mastering the critical concepts you need to plan, implement, control and close any type of project.

You will learn about project politics and ethics, project measurements, and project closure. You will be able to develop all sections of a project plan, you will become comfortable with the project management body of knowledge, and you will develop a variety of powerful techniques to generate project ideas.

If you're new to project management, this course will provide you with the essential information you will need to prepare for and complete your first project. If you're an experienced project manager, this course will make you more valuable to your employer by increasing your skills and competencies.

This course and its follow-up (Project Management Applications) also include essential information that will help you prepare for the Project Management Professional (PMP)® and the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM®) exams offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI)®. Certification Magazine recently identified PMP certification as "the highest-paying certification" of the year.

Syllabus

In your first lesson, you will learn why project management is necessary and find out how to differentiate projects from programs and tasks. When you finish with this lesson, you will understand the temporary and unique nature of projects and discover why scoping a project is a critical activity.

This lesson will set the stage for the remainder of the course by introducing the major project management activities that establish it as a formal field of study. You will learn how to plan and control a project and see how project tools help you work effectively and efficiently. You will see how human behavior affects your projects and also determine the role of risk management, quality assurance, purchasing, and politics.

The Internet is a storehouse of useful project management information. In this lesson, you will learn how to access and use project management resources that you find on the web. You will also discover how to use the four phases of the project life cycle—conceptualization and definition, planning, implementation, and completion and closure—in creating your project plan and putting it into practice.

This lesson focuses on the planning activity as a key factor in helping you succeed with project management. In any enterprise, planning should be the first activity performed. It sets the stage for the remainder of project management activities. You will learn about the importance of strategic planning as a backdrop for your project plan. You will discover the elements of planning, understand why many people are reluctant to plan, and learn how the 5 Ws and 1H can help you to create a sound project plan.

In this lesson, you will discover the characteristics and goals of effective control systems and be able to identify the benefits of control. You will learn the prerequisites to use control, find out how to use steps of the control process, and identify problems with using control. You will also discover the various types of control techniques.

This lesson may be the most important one in the course: A highly functional project team and an excellent project manager are critical success factors for any project. You will learn about a project manager's roles and responsibilities, and also required skills and competencies. To support your project manager, you will discover the characteristics of a team, see how a team comes together, and find out how to use effective team building activities.

This lesson explores two different sides of the same coin (deliverables and stakeholders). You will develop an understanding of methods that will help you generate excellent ideas to provide project solutions that satisfy expectations. You will learn how deliverables are prone to change and see how quality function deployment (QFD) identifies and satisfies stakeholder requirements. You will understand how brainstorming, brainwriting, the nominal group technique, and affinity diagrams lead to excellent project management ideas.

As a project manager, you need to practice a high level of business ethics and also be aware of organizational politics. Also, you must be aware of conflict situations and act to manage conflict at the right time and in the right way. This lesson provides an overview of ethics, describe how ethics can be practically applied, and specify how to establish an ethical tone in your organization. You will learn the nature of organizational politics, understand the nature of conflict, and find out why some project teams experience more conflict than others.

In this lesson, everything discussed so far will come together as a project plan. The project plan that will be presented has 14 sections. Your project plan will begin with the foundational elements (project strategy, executive summary, statement of work, work breakdown structure, and project schedules), continue through supporting elements (human resource plans, procurement plans, interface plans, and configuration management plans), and conclude with controlling elements (work control plans, quality control plans, cost control plans, risk management plans, and reporting plans).

This lesson expand upon the fundamental elements discusses earlier. First, you will learn areas that can jumpstart your project into action, including key factors for a successful project like using a pilot and holding a project kickoff meeting. You will also learn about interpersonal aspects of project execution like creating team rules, using effective communication, and solving problems.

Project control is the most important activity for your project. In this lesson, you will learn the importance of project control, project performance measurements, and project reporting. You will discover why Earned Value is an outstanding method to control project cost and performance. You will also find out how a periodic project audit can keep your project on track.

Your final lesson focuses on what happens at the end of a project. To increase your understanding about this topic, you will review and apply all the necessary activities that you must follow to effectively close your project. You will work through the steps of project closure and also identify reasons why your project may not be successful.

Requirements

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

This course can be taken on either a PC or Mac.

Software Requirements:

PC: Windows XP or later.

Mac: OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 or later.

Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.

Applications must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites to take this course.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

Instructor

Tony Swaim has helped many clients, colleagues, and students reach their professional and personal goals. He has been an online instructor since 1998 and has taught at colleges and universities across the United States since 1981. His focus areas are project management, Six Sigma, and supply chain management. Tony manages a successful consulting firm, and his industry experience includes 20 years of supply chain management. He earned a Doctorate in Business Administration from Kennesaw State University and holds professional certifications in six disciplines, including the Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI)® and Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB)® from the American Society for Quality (ASQ)®.

Reviews

I thought that the way the course was organized with 2 lessons a week and quizzes to help reinforce the content was excellent and right on target. I found it easy to become engaged in the lessons, assignments, and online discussions; rather than experiencing information overload where it's harder to retain the material. The supplementary links were also very helpful and a nice addition to the lessons. The instructor was very responsive to any comments or questions I had along the way. I enjoyed the teaching style very much.

I really enjoyed this class. It definitely filled the gaps in my knowledge of Project Management. I also enjoyed being able to attend class at my leisure from home.

I had very little project management knowledge before taking this class and thought that I might be overwhelmed by the course content. However, I found that the course taught at just the right level to introduce me to the concepts, tools & processes of project management. I highly recommend the course to anyone wanting a taste of the project management world!

I really enjoyed the course, and wish I had more time to utilize the discussion area, it was fantastic, I had some of the same questions that were answered, and some great ideas as well! Great course, invaluable resources too!! Can't wait for the next part!

I was greatly impressed by this course. It was the correct length and enabled me to print out the exercises. The supplemental web sites are excellent. Great job.

This was a fantastic class and I really enjoyed it!

Mr. Swaim did a very good job in putting this material together. He has proven that he is very knowledgeable in Project Management. The lessons were easy to follow and understand and the flow of the subject matter was very good. I would recommend his course to others.

This was my first online class and I thought it was excellent. The instructor gave me material that I can use in other aspects of my job and I am planning on doing so shortly. If your other instructors are as good as Tony, you will have a great program, and you should be proud of it.

Tony, as a final comment on the course, my major is in Educational Technology and I've worked with technical institutes setting up distance learning initiatives for some time. The way you've organized this course is impressive. Also for the number of students that you had enrolled the amount of individual attention that you provided was spectacular. It takes a lot of time and committment to maintain contact with a large class, however, from the student's perspective it is extremely motivating.Good work.

Tony, Thank you for this on line course. I found both the course content and your comments to be informative and interesting.